21/11/2009-16/12/2009: Marion Bataillard - Paintings
STYX Project Space concludes the exhibition year 2009 with the discovery of an outstanding emerging talent and is proud to present the first Berlin solo exhibition of Marion Bataillard.
Bataillard has already established a mature visual language in her paintings, which tend to fill surreal situations with figurative evocations bearing expressive poses nourished by late Medieval and early Renaissance religious sources. Apparel and everyday objects, however, anchor the setting in the present or the recent past. Grotesque sexually ambiguous individuals run rampant in sparsely furnished rooms or spaces overrun with clouds of muted color. The dominant mood is one of hysteria or religious ecstasy; even when her figures are laughing, the source of the laughter seems to be internal. This focused intensity, wherein the body is used as a visual substitute for the realm of the emotions, heightens Bataillard's paintings to a near-epiphanic plateau.
With their complex psychological overtones and a subdued color scheme, the paintings of Marion Bataillard weave a dense stylistic web, resonating visual parallels to texts of George Bataille and Simone Weil - both writers that the artist has mentioned in her own writings. Bataillard neglects naming her paintings, and rightly so - these evocations of a world running parallel to our own need not take on the burden of names in order to gain our empathy and understanding. For despite their inherent strangeness, there are enough visual clues here to lead us back to situations we may have at least dreamed, if not lived.
The exhibition will consist of six satellite paintings orbiting the artist's largest canvas to date. Measuring at 7 x 2.30 meters, this frightening and gorgeous work is a genuine masterpiece, and serves as the unmistakable launching pad for an ambitious visual journey.
Marion Bataillard was born in 1983 in Nantes, France. She studied with Manfred Sternjakob at the ESAD in Strasbourg and with Neo Rauch at HGB Leipzig. In addition to her paintings, Bataillard's creative output includes video and text. She lives and works in Berlin.
Opening Reception: 21 November 2009, 7-10 pm
Closing Reception: 16 December 2009, 7-10 pm
Opening hours:
Fridays & Saturdays 3-4 pm or by appointment.